


what are you afraid of, making it better?

by dollsome



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 01:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5608195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollsome/pseuds/dollsome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“I don’t want to talk about it, Mom,” she manages. “It’s nothing. It’s just—it’s just over, okay?”<br/>“That most certainly is not nothing,” Emily says indignantly.</i>
</p><p>Alternate ending for 6x21, in which Emily Gilmore is simply unwilling to accept that Luke and Lorelai aren't getting married, and some important conversations are finally had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the real estate office

**Author's Note:**

> So, I was watching 6x21 again recently and as soon as it was over, I was like, "CLEARLY THE SOLUTION THAT WAS MEANT TO BE WAS EMILY GILMORE INTERFERING FOR THE GREATER GOOD AND FIXING LUKE/LORELAI!!!! How has no one thought of this before?????"
> 
> I promptly wrote a few thousand words of this fic ... and then discovered that this very same premise exists in [Piecing us Back Together](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3865504/chapters/8636878) by brittaden! So definitely go check that out for the epic telling of this type of AU. :)
> 
> This is a big ol' mess of emotional conversations that all take place on one night. (The night that Sookie and Jackson run through Stars Hollow frightfully clutching black garbage bags of weed, to be precise. Oh the memories!) A few more sections are shortly to follow after this one!
> 
> Title from "Sights" by London Grammar (which, I must admit, I am feeling Very Emotional about when pairing it with this story and/or poor end-of-s6 Lorelai).

Lorelai stares at the perfect house, her mother’s hand a tentative weight on her shoulder.

Lorelai thinks about a fishing hole, and a stable for horses, and a string of sunny easy mornings with Luke cooking breakfast in a big homey kitchen. Little feet scampering across the floors.

“Lorelai,” Emily says, “what in the world is going on?”

Lorelai lets herself look at what they won’t ever have. Just for a second. Then she wills her eyes to the floor instead.

“ _Lor_ elai,” Emily persists.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Mom,” she manages. “It’s nothing. It’s just—it’s just over, okay?”

“That most certainly is not nothing,” Emily says indignantly.

Lorelai briefly contemplates dropping dead right here, right now. There’s a good chance it’d be the most exciting thing to ever happen in a real estate office.

“Now, I demand you tell me what happened between you and Luke,” Emily orders, and wouldn’t you know, the hysterical tinge to her voice stabs right into Lorelai’s brain. The cherry on the Best Day Ever sundae.

“Nothing _happened_ , Mom,” Lorelai says. “It’s just – it’s just run its course, okay? I realized we’re not right for the long haul. He’s got his own thing going, and—”

“Did he cheat on you?”

“What? No. Luke would never do that.”

“I thought not. The man is obsessed with you.”

“We’re just ... going in different directions. That’s it. That’s all. It’s fine.” Her voice cracks on ‘fine,’ and she presses a hand to her face, like somehow that will fix anything.

“Lorelai—” Emily says, and then seems to run out of words.

The silence is way more unnerving than any verbal interrogation could be. Lorelai is used to verbal interrogations. Maternal tenderness, not so much.

Lorelai turns around. Her mother is looking at her, ridiculous in those Jackie O sunglasses, her mouth in a worried frown. Emily lifts a hand and for a second Lorelai thinks she might do something weird and affectionate – touch her face, or smooth her hair, or something. Then Emily catches herself, and her fingers fold into a fist.

“Will somebody bring us some water?” Emily barks. When a waiter in black tie doesn’t appear with a glass of Perrier within two seconds, she declares, “Dear God. The service here is terrible.”

“Maybe that’s because it’s a real estate office,” Lorelai suggests, annoyed.

Emily scoffs dismissively. “That’s no excuse.”

“Actually, it’s a pretty good excuse, Mom.”

“Nonsense. Someone in here must be capable of the common courtesy required to bring a glass of water. Now, sit down.” She herds Lorelai into one of the chairs and sits down next to her.

Lorene the Long Suffering Real Estate Agent dips in, glass of water in hand. “Here you go, Emily.”

“Thank you, Lorene,” Emily says, with the graciousness of someone who didn’t just majorly dis the nonexistent wait staff service at the real estate office.

“And just in case—” Lorene adds, rattling a bottle of medication in her other hand.

“I don’t need Aspirin,” Lorelai says impatiently.

“Don’t mind her. The headaches make her very unsociable,” Emily says.

Lorelai takes the glass of water and wishes it was a little bigger. Like, say, drown-yourself-in-it sized.

Lorene gives them one last parting smile. Behind it definitely lurks the silent demand ‘get your psycho child out of our office, Emily Gilmore.’

Emily, typically, ignores her completely.

“Now, what’s brought this on?” Emily demands, settling in. “Of course you and Luke are getting married.”

Lorelai doesn’t exactly have a history of taking it well when her mother tells her what she’s _of course_ going to do.

But this time—for the first time; alert the history books—she wants to listen. She wants to believe that she’s just being ridiculous dramatic Lorelai. Blowing things out of proportion, like always. Overreacting, like always. Of course she and Luke are getting married.

Hearing it like that, Lorelai is tempted to believe it. But then again, her mom doesn’t know the whole story.

“I lied to you,” Lorelai says.

“What?” Emily says sharply. “You were never really engaged?”

“No, Mother, we were really engaged,” Lorelai sigh-groans. “Are. But ... I lied about June 3rd.”

“You just picked a random date to appease your overbearing mother,” Emily surmises, her tone going flat.

“No,” Lorelai says, “I planned a wedding for June 3rd. I had the church, and the invitations, and—” She pauses, swallows. “And the dress. We were good to go. But then Luke found out about April, and it was all a lot for him, and so he asked if maybe we could push the wedding back.”

“To when?” Emily asks severely.

“The question of the century, ladies and gentlemen,” Lorelai grumbles.

“Ah,” Emily says.

Lorelai waits for something. Anything. A sensitive remark about Lorelai’s pathological inability to get a man to commit. A thoughtful you-can-never-trust-a-man-who-touches-hamburgers-for-a-living crack.

But Emily just watches her, waiting.

It’s so unsettling that Lorelai finally starts talking just to fill the silence.

“So I decided I was going to be cool with it, you know?” she says lightly. “He’s going through this big thing in his life – this big, unbelievable thing – and he didn’t really want me to be part of it, and that’s fine. That’s okay. If he doesn’t want me to see his daughter, he doesn’t want me to see his daughter. It’s not like she’s my daughter. It doesn’t really matter, right?”

“That’s ludicrous,” Emily says. “You and Luke are all but family, which means that this girl is part of your family too. Why wouldn’t you see her on a regular basis?”

“That’s the thing; I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me why. Just that he wanted to get the situation sorted out first, and if I could just wait, then someday, maybe—” Her eyes sting. Time for a topic change. “And then we were out shopping for a birthday present for her, and he wanted to buy her this terrible toiletry set covered in pictures of kittens.”

“Dear lord,” Emily says, aghast.

“Exactly,” says Lorelai. “So I offered to help him pick out something that a thirteen year old girl on this planet would actually want. And he just—he just _snapped_ at me. And he went into this whole big thing about how if April meets me, she won’t like him anymore. I’ll always be the favorite and he won’t stand a chance. I mean, what the hell is that?”

To her surprise, Emily doesn’t immediately jump on the What The Hell is Up With Luke? train.

“Hmm,” is all she says.

“ _Hmm_?” Lorelai repeats doubtfully.

“I suppose I can see where he was coming from.”

“What?” Lorelai says.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s just that you saying that you can see where Luke is coming from – I’m pretty sure that’s one of the signs of the apocalypse. It’s four horsemen and locusts and you empathizing with Luke.”

Emily sighs, impatient. “You’re very good with children, Lorelai. They adore you. You don’t know what it’s like to be a person who doesn’t have such natural insight into their hyperactive little brains.”

“Uh, thanks?” Lorelai says.

“So Luke was concerned that his daughter would prefer you to him. What then?”

Lorelai sighs, takes a second to channel her inner Tolkien, and carries on with the neverending saga. “Then he threw her the most terrible birthday party in the world, and he panicked, and he called me and asked for my help. And we actually turned it into a pretty good shindig, and so I suggested hey, let’s make this a sleepover. And, because we didn’t want to lure the attention of the fine folks on To Catch a Predator, I stayed with the girls upstairs and Luke slept downstairs. But I guess April’s mom found out that the girls were being chaperoned by a stranger all night, and she freaked.”

“Freaked? Freaked how?”

“She said that it was totally unacceptable that Luke had left them with some random woman. And I thought, you know, okay, I get it. Stranger danger, a valid concern, but really not an issue with me. It’s not like Luke just picked up some floozy off the street corner and said, ‘Hey, babe, watch these kids for me.’ And not just because Stars Hollow’s street corners are one hundred percent floozy-free; even if there was a floozy on every corner, Luke still is so not the kind of guy to succumb to the charms of the random corner floozy—”

“Lorelai, for the love of God, stop saying ‘floozy’ and tell me what happened.”

Lorelai takes a breath. “So I went to see Anna at her store, to explain the whole thing, and ...”

Even just mentioning it makes her feel sick.

“Yes?” Emily prompts.

“I told her that I could be trusted,” Lorelai says, careful to keep her voice level. “That I was marrying Luke, that I wasn’t just some random girlfriend. And she said – and she said that that was nice and everything, but engaged wasn’t married, and I could be out of Luke’s life tomorrow.” She swallows the lump in her throat. “And she’s right. I could. It’s not like I’m really _in_ his life anymore anyway. Not since April showed up. And I guess when she said that ...” Lorelai breathes in and out. Might as well get used to saying it. “I guess I just knew that we weren’t going to ... that we aren’t going to ... that it’s over. It’s fine. Can we go?”

She stands up, slinging her purse over her shoulder, and makes it approximately half a step before her mother grabs her arm.

For someone apparently hanging out at death’s door, Emily’s rocking a seriously Terminator level grip.

“No, we cannot _go_ ,” Emily says. “Not until we’ve talked about this.”

“What is there to talk about? I feel like I’ve made it pretty clear. Me, Luke, no wedding, over, the end.”

“What are you talking about? That Neanderthal dotes on you. He has for years. There were times I was tempted to recommend a restraining order, but you seemed to _like_ him lurking around at all hours, so I held my tongue.”

“That was a long time ago, Mom.”

“I couldn’t even break the two of you up for good,” Emily goes on. “And it’s only very rarely that I don’t accomplish what I set my mind to, Lorelai.”

“Uh, yeah, I really, really know that.”

“So I don’t see why you think your only option is to just give up on your future together,” Emily finishes, waving a frustrated hand. “Especially after we announced the engagement in the paper.”

Lorelai’s stomach sinks.

“Right,” she says. “Suddenly all this concern is making a lot of sense.”

Emily groans. “Oh, don’t you start—”

“No, Mom, really, I’m sorry. I didn’t think! I wouldn’t want losing the love of my life to put you and Dad in an uncomfortable position. Think of what the people at the club would say! If I had pearls on, I’d be clutching them.”

“I’m concerned about you, Lorelai,” Emily insists. “I know how you get. When something gets too serious, you run.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not the one running this time,” Lorelai says, and there’s her new best pal Lump In The Throat, back again. She stares at the floor. It’s some seriously ugly carpet.

“Then what did Luke say about Anna’s remarks?” Emily demands. “I imagine he must have been remarkably passive, to make you this upset. Strange. It doesn’t seem like him. The man hardly strikes me as an expert on considerate conduct, but he’s always been very attuned to your well being before. Remember when he spent hours at that terrible hospital with you after your father’s heart attack? And that was back when you wouldn’t even admit he was anything besides your coffee slave.”

Lorelai looks up. Even though she can’t see her mother’s eyes, she knows what lurks in them right now. Savage, hideous triumph.

“I didn’t tell him, all right?” Lorelai admits. “What’s the point? Me telling him won’t change anything. Believe me, Mom – Anna was not about to change her stance on me.”

She prepares herself for a barrage of lecturing. About what? Who knows. With her mother swearing her allegiance to Team Luke, nothing makes sense anymore. But the lecturing – that’s inevitable.

And then:

“Let’s go,” Emily says abruptly.

“What? Where?”

“To visit this Anna and sort things out.”

“Oh, Mom,” Lorelai says, horror oozing through her. “No. No way.”

“She’s leveled some very troubling accusations at you, and by extension this family,” Emily says firmly.

“And of course that means we have no choice but to meet her with the pistols at dawn,” Lorelai snarks. The kind of snarking that’s instinctive, primal, a desperate survival mechanism.

“Lorelai,” Emily says simply, “this is not a joke. This is your life. And if this woman has gotten the idea that you’re anything less than an exemplary mother, then she’s been very misinformed. I see nothing wrong with clearing up the miscommunication; do you?”

And it is a mark of how purely exhausted Lorelai is that she ignores all of the warning signs and the flashing lights and the _DANGER, DANGER WILL ROBINSON!_ cacophony in her head.

“Okay,” she says weakly, shrugging.

Emily smiles. “Good.”


	2. the dressing room

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like to call this chapter: dollsome gets all her lingering issues out even though Partings aired in 2006, because LIKE HELL I'M OVER IT, I'LL NEVER BE OVER IT, I'LL NEVER MOVE ON.
> 
> Ahem.
> 
> Happy reading!

Lorelai comes back to her senses when they get to Woodbridge.

Specifically, when she and Emily are standing in front of Anna’s store.

Unfortunately, the moment she realizes, _Wait, what are we doing? This is CRAZY_ is the exact moment Emily bursts on into the front door, blindness be damned.

“Oh no,” Lorelai mutters, and runs after her.

She gets inside just in time to find her mother asking Anna, “Is your daughter here?”

“What?” Anna says. She looks so baffled. So caught off guard. So young and innocent.

Poor thing.

 _Stop this_ , the logical, Rory-ish part of Lorelai’s brain instructs. _Shut this down before it ruins everything even worse. We’re talking epic levels of ruined. Pompeii. X-Files without Duchovny._

It’s a testament to how screwed up Lorelai has been lately that she can’t seem to do much of anything besides stand and watch.

“Oh, don’t worry; I’m not some random stranger asking after your child. That _would_ be unsettling, wouldn’t it? But you have nothing to worry about.” Emily flashes a frosty smile. “You see, I’m Luke’s mother-in-law.”

Lorelai all but keels over and dies at that one.

“Oh,” Anna says, her answering smile none too bright. “And you want to see April because ... ?”

“I came here to see you, actually,” Emily says primly. “Is your daughter here?”

“April is having dinner at a friend’s house tonight.”

“How nice,” Emily says pleasantly. “That will give us the chance to speak freely about the fact that you owe my daughter an apology.”

“Excuse me?” Anna says, laughing slightly.

Lorelai decides the only way out is to bury herself in unique vintage handbags. Unfortunately, she can’t seem to move.

“A bit of groveling wouldn’t hurt either,” Emily carries on, really going full Medea. “After the ridiculous insults you flung her way.”

“I ... owe you an apology and a bit of groveling,” Anna repeats, raising her eyebrows Lorelai’s way.

“You don’t,” Lorelai says. “You really don’t. None of what she’s saying has anything to do with why we’re here, by the way. You see, my mom was just jonesing for a unique vintage handbag, and I said, ‘Mom, boy do I know the shop for you’—" 

“Please,” Emily scoffs. “This place looks like the inside of some sort of hippie van.”

“And I’m out,” Lorelai mutters, and just this once chooses the path of dismayed silence.

“I think it’s very sweet that you want to protect your daughter,” Anna says, clearly striving for composure. “But Lorelai and I are on good terms. We had a perfectly civil conversation.”

“In which you questioned her relationship with her fiancé – a man _you_ never managed to lock down, might I add – and her mothering skills? Where in the world, exactly, is that considered civil? Remind me never to visit there.”

“Lorelai understands what it’s like to be careful as a single mother,” Anna says. Her indignation is really starting to shine through now. “She told me that.”

“Oh, I see,” Emily says, unmoved. Loftily, she adds, “Lorelai raised a daughter alone too, you know. Rory Gilmore. She goes to Yale, and she’s the editor of the Yale Daily News, not to mention a member of the D.A.R. She’s being courted by Logan Huntzberger – I would say ‘yes, those Huntzbergers,’ but I doubt that name would have much significance in your particular social circle.”

Lorelai watches Anna’s face contort into the kind of pained expression that only talking to Warpath Emily Gilmore can bring, and she realizes in one sickening second just what she has to do. Who she has to tell about this, before he hears it from Anna.

Oh, God.

“Have you been drinking?” Anna asks Emily.

Not going down without a fight, then.

“Ex _CUSE_ me??” Emily hisses.

“I just don’t understand why on earth a WASP in Top Gun sunglasses has decided that it was in any way a reasonable decision to storm into my place of business and start playing Mean Girls—”

Lorelai leaves them to their verbal evisceration party and ducks into one of the dressing rooms. She pulls out her cellphone. Dials.

The phone rings. Once, twice.

She pulls it away from her ear to hang up, but then: 

“Luke’s Diner.”

So she’s really doing this, then.

Great.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“What? Lorelai, where have you been? Where _are_ you?”

“I’m just sorry, okay. I’m sorry. I promise, you’ll get it. Soon the whole ‘I’m sorry’ word avalanche will be making a whole lot of sense to you.”

“What are you—wait.” Then: a pause of doom. A long, listeny kind of pause. And boy, is there some prime shouting to listen to. “Is that your mom? And – _Anna_?”

“Hence the ‘I’m sorry’,” says Lorelai.

“What the hell is going on?” Luke demands, and Lorelai can picture him throwing down a dish towel and leaping over the counter.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen. Believe me, this was not my plan for the evening.”

“Oh yeah? Your mom and Anna just bumped into each other on the street and started a random shouting match, huh? Is that it?” His voice goes muffled; she pictures him cupping his hand over the phone. “Caesar, you close up. I gotta go.” Then, back to Lorelai: “Where are you?”

“No, don’t come here,” Lorelai says, seizing up.

“Where’s here?” Luke says. “Because wherever it is, it’s the place where my worst nightmare is coming true. In fact, it’s worse than my worst nightmare. I thought my worst nightmare was you and Rory driving in one car, and Liz and Jess driving in another car, and then you get into a crash, no survivors, and I’m left with nobody but TJ to call my own, but nope. Turns out it’s this.”

“Hey, don’t sell yourself short,” Lorelai says weakly. “I’m pretty sure Kirk would stick by your side. He’s your brother from another mother.”

“Lorelai, why the _hell_ is your mom talking to Anna? Is this about Anna being mad about the party? Because I handled it, okay? It’s handled. And the last thing I need is your mom storming in and screwing things up.”

“You didn’t handle it,” Lorelai says. Some seriously stupid feelings are starting to rise up. “You didn’t even talk to her about it more than once.”

“That’s ‘cause I didn’t need to talk to her more than once. She was upset. I listened. I won’t mess up like that again. That sounds like ‘handled’ to me.”

“My god, are you kidding me?” Lorelai says even though she knows she shouldn’t, even though she knows shutting up is the only smart move here. Too late. “I talked to her, okay? I talked to Anna.”

“What??”

“After the party. I went to see Anna, to apologize to her. I thought if maybe I met her and explained where I was coming from, she would see that I’m not this weirdo that needs to be kept out of her kid’s life.”

“Lorelai, why would you—”

“Because it’s not just your life, okay? This stuff, this April stuff, it’s becoming a part of my life too, and I felt like I deserved the chance to defend myself to her even if you don’t give a crap that she thinks I’m Stars Hollow’s very own Child Catcher.”

“Wait, that’s not—”

“Oh, don’t worry about it.” Lorelai laughs shortly. “My stunning credentials in the field of daughter-raising didn’t exactly dazzle her. She made it really clear what she thinks about me. About you and me.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Luke demands.

“She said I wasn’t a permanent part of your life. She doesn’t want April getting attached and then me just, I don’t know, vanishing into the ether one day. That’s smart, right? She’s thinking ahead.”

“Why would you vanish into the ether?”

“I don’t know, but she seemed to get the impression that it was real likely. Maybe the way you talked to her about me.”

“What do you mean? I didn’t talk to her about you. I mean, I’m sure I’ve talked to her about you, but I never said anything like that—”

“She doesn’t think you and me are a forever thing, okay?” Lorelai interrupts. “And since she’s never spent any time with us together, I have to believe that you, I don’t know, you were giving out the vibe that you just weren’t that into this relationship. What, did you forget to mention you were engaged or something?”

“Lorelai, that’s crazy—”

“I mean, what was Anna supposed to think, if you were giving out the ‘Hey, April, welcome to my new life—nothing important to see here, no one important to see here’ vibe—”

“Lorelai—”

“And I’m not some psychopath, okay? It’s not like I’m wandering around jealous of a little girl. I think it’s incredible what you’re doing, Luke, I do – God, I would have given anything to have Christopher do what you’re doing right now back when Rory was a kid. And if you had to choose, of course you chose April. It’s got to be April. The kid always comes first. I get that, believe me.”

“Choose? What are you talking about? I didn’t _choose_ anybody.” 

“But you did, though. Not telling me about her for two months, and no more June 3rd, and not listening to me when you picked out that godawful birthday gift for her.” She looks at herself in the dressing room mirror, and only realizes then that, wouldn’t you know, she’s crying. She looks sick and blotchy and awful. Maybe nothing is worth this.

“You chose, Luke,” she says softly.

“But you were fine with it,” Luke protests.

“I wasn’t fine.”

“You kept saying you were fine.”

“What else was I supposed to say? ‘Luke, I’m miserable all the time?’”

“Yeah!”

“Really? You would have taken that well?”

“If you’re miserable all the time, I should know about it, so I can help to fix it.”

“But would you have?”

“What? Of course I would.” He sounds so worried and so hurt. It makes her heart ache.

It makes her really, really want to believe that he still loves her the same way he always has.

She pauses for a minute. Then she tests, “So if I had told you how upset I was, you would have been like, ‘Lorelai, _of course_ you can get to know April, and be a part of her life on a daily basis, and help me figure this whole parenting a teenage girl thing since you’re – oh wait – kind of the expert around here?’”

He doesn’t say anything. Just exhales sharply.

_Gotcha._

“I knew it,” Lorelai mutters, and hates how obviously weepy she sounds.

She thinks about hanging up.

“Lorelai, wait a second,” Luke says, like he can read her mind.

“What?” she says shortly.

“Has it really been bothering you this much?”

She almost laughs. Not really in a funny-ha-ha way. More funny-I’m-dead-inside. “You making it perfectly clear that I have no place in your life? Yeah. Wouldn’t you know, that smarts a little.”

Luke is quiet for a long time. She almost wonders if he hung up.

But she knows him. She knows he wouldn’t do that. Her Luke wouldn’t, at least. Trusty old Luke. The one who would do anything for her. But she almost wants him to give her reasons to stop believing that Luke still exists. Now he’s Dad Luke, or Luke 2.0: Dedicated Parent, Now With 100% Less Lorelai. She just needs something, anything to justify how far away from him she feels. She needs all of this to be his fault, because otherwise she’s just the same mess she’s always been, throwing away love like always. Throwing it away even when it’s with the one person that she really—

She closes her eyes and waits for him to speak. 

Finally, he says, “You think I’ve been doing that?”

“You _have_ been.”

“You have a place.”

“Well, if I do have a place, it’s not next to you. I get to stay in this little corner, and I can’t come out when April’s around, and I can’t ask you about the wedding. I just have to behave and be cheerful and nod and smile and never imply that anything about this situation sucks for me, because God forbid I be anything besides the perfect fiancée, right? And—”

“Lorelai,” Luke says firmly.

“What?"

“I’m not your parents.”

“Okay, Captain Non Sequitur,” she says, even though she thinks she knows what he’s getting at.

“I mean it. This, what we’ve got, it can’t be that kind of family where you feel like you can’t speak up about what you’re really feeling. I know neither of us are very good at that, but if something’s bugging you like this, you have to tell me.”

“Oh, like you told me about having a surprise kid?” Sure, not really a mature response, but that’s what he gets for playing the Let’s Talk About Your Dysfunctional Family History card. “Yes, Luke, please lecture me about honesty—”

“What? I thought we were past that.”

“Past it? Please! How can I ever trust you again after that?”

She can hear him getting upset now. _Good,_ thinks the spiteful part of her. “You said you understood. You said it was okay.”

“What else was I supposed to say, Luke?”

“Oh, I don’t know, how about the truth?”

“The truth?” she repeats. “Uh, okay then: the truth is I’m still really, really mad at you. Not telling me about April – it was a cowardly, cruel, shitty thing to do. And I hate the way you talked to me when we were fighting over that stupid kitten toiletry set for April. You don’t get to talk to me like that; you’re not in charge of me. Sure, fine, set some boundaries for your kid, but don’t treat me like some insolent child when I’m trying to help you – which, by the way, you would have been _doomed_ without me, bucko. That was quite possibly the worst birthday present in the history of earth. If I had gotten that present when I turned thirteen I would have revolted. We’re talking full on anarchy here. I saved your ass.”

She waits for him to say something, but he stays quiet. She can hear him breathing on the other end of the line.

“And I thought,” she says, going on even though it must be time to stop, “we were finally, _finally_ somewhere after the party. That we had finally made progress. Do you know how it felt to find out that Anna didn’t want me around April because – I don’t know, because apparently I’m not a permanent enough part of your life, and that you wouldn’t even defend me to her? You not doing that, you made it seem like she was right.” She sniffles impatiently, wiping the tears from her cheek even though no one can see them. “And you’re Luke, okay? You’re-you're  _my_ Luke. You aren’t supposed to hurt me like that. You’ve always, always been there for me before. I mean, you built me a chuppah when I was getting married to another guy, for God’s sake. And now it’s like you don’t even care if we ever get married, because I don’t know, maybe wanting to be with me was better than actually being stuck with the real deal." 

Finally, finally she stops talking.

She feels a little dizzy. She said it. She said it, and he heard it, and now everything’s well and truly ruined for good. It feels surreal that it’s ending like this, with her standing in this stupid dressing room and listening to the dim dulcet tones of her mother and his baby mama throwing down.

But maybe this is the way it should be. She doesn’t think she could take it if she was standing in the same room with him.

It’s better like this. To have a head start at distance now that they’re letting each other go.

At last, Luke says, “Will you come home, please?”

“What?” It definitely isn’t the response she was expecting. Granted, the response she was expecting was more along the lines of _Luke decides never to interact with a human being again, moves out into the woods for the rest of his life and finds true hermity peace, the end. Viggo Mortensen stars in the film adaptation._

“I want to see you,” he says. “I can’t say what I have to say on the phone hiding in the storage room.”

Lorelai scoffs. “If you’re gonna break up with me, you might as well do it over the phone while you’re hiding in the storage room. Really give this thing an elegant send-off.”

“That’s not funny.”

“Who says I’m joking?”

“Lorelai.”

She feels a little flicker of something, hope or panic. Whatever the feeling is, she buries it. She’s not going to get all antsy about what this means. She’s officially in just-rip-off-the-Bandaid territory. It's time to move away. Move on. “I’m helping my mom, remember? I have to take her home to Hartford, so it’s going to be awhile.”

“Okay,” Luke says with the steadiness of a dude who so can’t (or won’t) take the hint. “Do you want me to wait for you at the house?”

She thinks of him sitting on her couch for hours. Checking his watch.

“I’ll meet you at the diner,” she says, and doesn’t know if she means it.

“Okay. I’ll be waiting.”

“It might be late,” Lorelai warns him.

“I don’t mind,” Luke says. “I’ll be here.”

He sounds so sure.

Lorelai nods (which is stupid; it’s not like he can see her), and then she hangs up.


	3. the drive

After she hangs up the phone, Lorelai stares at herself in the mirror. Then she digs into her purse. Underneath a bunch of crumpled receipts and old ticket stubs for movies Luke never wanted to see but gamely watched anyway and a bag of mostly crushed Oreos, she finds a packet of tissues. She takes one out and dabs uselessly at her face, listening to her mother’s voice. At least the rumble seems to have settled down.

“I understand that you’re worried about your child,” Emily is saying. “It’s a parent’s duty to worry. But when it comes to Lorelai, you have nothing to worry about. If anything, your daughter is safer with Lorelai in the picture than she would be one on one with that socially inept lumberjack.”

“Luke really scored in the mother-in-law department, didn’t he?” Anna says. Lorelai has no idea what to read in her voice.

“And April – pardon the inane turn of phrase – really scored in the stepmother department. I recommend that you take the time to learn that, because Lorelai isn’t going anywhere.”

Anna is quiet for a long time. At last, she wearily asks, “Anything else?”

“Yes. I’ll take this one.” Lorelai peeks out of the dressing room to see her mom placing a pink handbag on the counter. Clearly being in Stevie Wonder mode hasn’t impaired her ability to shop. “It’s completely inappropriate for any social event of merit, of course, but I suppose I could find use for it on more rustic occasions. Out camping, for instance.”

“All right then,” Anna says dryly. The cash register chings. “Have a good evening. Please come back never.”

“Gladly,” Emily says. Then she calls over her shoulder, “Lorelai! We’re leaving!”

Lorelai hurries after her, but pauses at the front counter.

Anna catches her eye, but doesn’t say anything. Lorelai lifts her hand in a hopeless wave, and the corner of Anna’s mouth twitches, just slightly.

Lorelai wonders if Anna might actually say something—probably not _Welcome to the family_ , but maybe at least _I see you clearly have enough familial stress in your life already; I’ll lay off this whole anti-Lorelai crusade_. Anna opens her mouth.

Then the phone rings, and the moment breaks. Anna goes to answer it, and Lorelai steps outside. In the second before the door closes, she hears Anna saying Luke’s name.

Emily is waiting outside. She holds her arm out expectantly. Lorelai sighs and dutifully takes it, guiding her mother through the parking lot.

“You don’t go camping,” Lorelai remarks. It’s the first thing that comes to mind.

“That’s hardly relevant. The point was to insult her.”

“You know, Mom, there are some people out there – lots, even – who wouldn’t consider camping to be an automatic insult.”

“How horrible,” Emily shudders. “I suppose you can give the camping bag to Luke.”

“Mom, can you even see the bag?”

“Of course not, Lorelai. I’m blind. Has that fact somehow managed to escape your attention?”

“It’s pink.”

“Rose?”

“Less rose, more hot.”

“Well, no bother. There are plenty of men who like pink these days. I think they’re called metrosexuals.”

“And does Luke give off a real metrosexual vibe to you?”

“You never know,” Emily says airily.

Lorelai laughs in quiet disbelief, and they walk on toward the car. It feels a little like floating through a dream. Not a fun dream, though. No Real Paul Anka. No eighteen alarm clocks.

Luke’s voice echoes in her head. _I’ll be here._

It isn’t that simple. Being there, it’s all well and good, but it’s not like it’s magic. It’s not like it’s going to just fix everything. At this point, there is no fixing everything. Not after all those horrible stupid things she said. It’s like the phrase _You can’t handle the truth_ was birthed into the universe just to describe Luke Danes’s brain at this very moment. Sorry, A Few Good Men. There’s no competing with the hysterical confessions of Lorelai Gilmore.

Hell, at this point spending the night with her mother sounds better than going back to Stars Hollow. Say what you want about Emily Gilmore (and Lorelai really, really has)—the woman knows how to fight when the going gets rough.

“That was an insane thing to do, Mom,” she says aloud, almost without realizing it.

Emily huffs dismissively. “If I had a nickel for every time you’ve called me insane, I’d be rich." 

“You _are_ rich.”

“Vanderbilt rich, then.”

Lorelai tries again. “That was an _insane_ thing to do—”

“Yes, you’ve established that.”

Lorelai swallows, and says, “Thank you for doing it.”

It’s quiet for a moment.

“You’re welcome,” Emily says tautly. Miss Manners as always. Then, to Lorelai’s surprise, she adds, “I don’t like seeing you upset like that.”

The moment begs for at least a hundred quips of the ‘oh yeah? Then why has it been your life’s work to make me miserable?’ variety. For once, Lorelai can’t summon even an ounce of filial bitterness.

“I thought you couldn’t see anything,” Lorelai finally says. The words come out soft and maybe even a little fond.

“Yes, well,” Emily says stiffly. “There are some things a mother just knows.”

Lorelai leans over and kisses her mother on the cheek. It’s the first physical display of affection she’s busted out since approximately grade school. Emily doesn’t keel over in shock, but her mouth twitches in a weepy-looking smile, just for a second.

Time to get out of feelings territory, even if these feelings aren’t so bad. Lorelai definitely can’t take any more crying from anyone tonight.

“Where to next?” Lorelai asks jauntily as they near the car. “Time to hit the clubs?”

“Really, Lorelai,” Emily says, back to her nice familiar state of total exasperation. “You’re the most obnoxious driver I’ve ever had.”

“Worse than Eduardo? Because I distinctly remember you hating Eduardo.”

“The man couldn’t find a turn signal if you labeled it for him.”

“The man drove for a living, Mom. I’m pretty sure he knew how to use a turn signal.”

“Well, he _never_ signaled early enough in all the time he drove us around. It’s a wonder we didn’t all die in a fiery wreck.”

“You know, I always liked Eduardo. He let me drive around the driveway when I was twelve.”

“He did not!”

“True story.”

“That _imbecile_.”

They get into the car. Emily even condescends to sit in the passenger’s seat instead of the back, probably because she doesn’t trust Lorelai’s judgment with the radio.

Lorelai starts the car, then switches on the turn signal.

“That early enough for you, Mom?” she asks innocently.

“Oh, very funny. You’re simply hilarious.”

“I mean it. We’re only, what, fifty feet from the next turn? The people need to be warned!”

“The people are going to think you’re drunk.”

“Well, you know us Gilmore women. That’s just the impression we like to cultivate among strangers in public. Evokes a certain sloppy mystery.”

“If you get us pulled over, Lorelai, I swear to God—”

Lorelai smiles to herself.

 

+

 

Miracle of miracles, Emily doesn’t bring up the whole Phone Call To End All Phone Calls thing until they’re five minutes away from the Gilmore house. They spend most of the drive chatting about what Rory’s up to, and for awhile it’s easy to pretend that everything is normal.

Until it’s not.

“That sounded like quite a phone conversation back there,” Emily observes.

Lorelai groans. “Mom, can we not?”

“Fine,” Emily says lightly.

Lorelai stares at the road in front of her.

“I’m not going to be one of those pathetic women, you know?” she says. “My life isn’t going to fall apart just because boohoo, my man isn’t paying enough attention to me. I’ve been alone my whole adult life. I don’t need anyone else’s help.”

“Yes,” Emily says. “And you’ve done very well. Better than anyone could have expected, given the circumstances.” Lorelai scowls. “But it’s all right to admit that you need someone, Lorelai. Everyone does sometimes. I promise the world won’t end if you tell Luke you need him to pay more attention to you.”

Even hearing the words makes her skin crawl. It’s so pitiful. It sounds so much like giving up. “I’m not going to tell Luke to _pay more attention to me_.”

“So you think he wouldn’t want to know how to make you happy?”

“It’s not his job to make me happy. Coffee, yes. Happy, no.”

“It’s not a _job_ , Lorelai. It’s a privilege. And one he ought to value. What is marriage, if not a promise to do your best to make your partner happy? To be there for them? But sometimes, that requires a little bit of help. Men aren’t mind readers, Lorelai, and if you expect them to be, you’re in for a world of disappointment.”

“Mom, it’s not that simple. He doesn’t want me around anymore.”

“Did he say that? Did he say, ‘Lorelai, I never want to see you again; please remove yourself from my life forthwith’?”

Lorelai doesn’t use the turn signal when she pulls into the driveway. Desperate times, and all.

But Emily doesn’t say anything. Just stares at her expectantly.

Lorelai finally mutters, “He’s waiting for me at the diner.”

Emily makes a satisfied little _hmm_ sound.

Lorelai rolls her eyes. When she stops the car, she waits for her mother to get out. Instead, Emily just sits there.

This can’t be good.

“Fun fact,” Lorelai says, “there’s a handle to your right and it makes the door _open_ , ooh ahh—”

“It’s no surprise that Luke isn’t the man your father and I would have chosen for you,” Emily says.

Oh no. This is definitely about to get real.

“Not ever,” Emily goes on. “Not in a thousand years. In fact, not in a million—”

“Okay, I get it,” Lorelai says impatiently. “Move along, please.”

“I always saw you with someone like Christopher. With Christopher himself, ideally. But there is one quality that Luke has that Christopher, bless him, has never been able to muster: that man is always there for you, and for Rory. And while I want more for you than marrying into the Stars Hollow Fast Food Empire, I also want you to be with someone you can always rely on. And Luke has proven himself to be that person, many times over.”

 _Not anymore,_ says a nasty little voice in Lorelai’s head.

( _I’ll be here,_ Luke said.)

“Singing Luke’s praises will never be my favorite hobby, but I’m willing to admit that much,” Emily says. “Don’t give up on him, Lorelai, just because you seem to have convinced yourself that he’s given up on you. I very much doubt he has. For God’s sake, who will he be with if not you? The ugly bag saleswoman? Please. You’re the best that man can do by far.”

And just like that, Lorelai feels like bursting into tears all over again. Just resting her head on the steering wheel of this giant stupid car and crying until she can’t anymore.

She wants so, so badly for her mother to be right.

She swallows the lump in her throat. This is so not the path to go down right now.

( _I’ll be here,_ Luke said.)

“You know, Mom,” she says, forcing her voice to sound steady and light, “if you want me to spend the night here, I can. If the ol’ eyesight is still on the fritz tomorrow and you don’t have anybody to boss around, who knows what might happen—”

“Lorelai,” her mother says – firmly, but gently too. “Go home.”


	4. home

When Lorelai gets back to Stars Hollow, she parks down the street from the diner instead of right outside. She takes her time ambling down the sidewalk. Each of her footsteps against the pavement sounds like _Leave. Turn around. Go._

When she reaches the diner window, she expects to see Luke puttering around behind the counter. Instead he’s sitting at one of the tables, resting his head in his hands. For a minute, she just watches him.

 _Leave. Turn around. Go._ She could go to Jackson and Sookie’s, maybe. He’ll know she wants to be alone if she’s hiding out there.

But then she looks closer.

On the other side of the table, there’s a giant coffee mug, a pie (not a piece; a _pie_ ), and a daisy in an old soda bottle.

Daisies. Summer wedding.

Her heart flops fondly.

She takes a deep breath, and then she walks inside.

When the bell on the door jingles, Luke looks up at her. He doesn’t look quite as crappy as she feels, but it’s close.

Lorelai drops the pink handbag onto the table in front of him.

“What’s that?” he asks.

“My mother bought you a camping purse.”

Luke stares at it for a long time.

“I don’t know how to respond to that,” he finally declares.

“I would be worried if you did,” Lorelai says.

Luke prods at the bag gingerly with one finger. “It’s pink.”

“And if you’re camping in Candy Land,” Lorelai says, “boy is it the camouflage for you.”

“She won’t expect a thank you note, will she?” Luke grimaces.

“Oh, she definitely will,” Lorelai assures him.

“Great,” Luke mutters.

Sometimes she thinks that they could murder each other’s families and still manage a couple rounds of successful banter. That part of their relationship always seems to work. It’s nice, just for a minute, to pretend that things are okay.

He looks up from the bag, and there’s something in his eyes that’s so worried and tired.

And it’s adios to pretending things are okay.

Time to venture into uncharted territory.

Lorelai folds her arms in front of her chest. Even though she’s exhausted, she can’t bring herself to sit down.

“You want to know how I spent the day?” Luke says.

“It’s gonna take a really good story to beat my stint as Chauffeur to the Temporarily Blind And Eternally Bossy,” Lorelai replies.

“Liz is pregnant. She threw TJ out. She was stressing about doing right by another kid; she took it all out on him; the guy was totally lost. So I spent all afternoon telling him about the importance of communication in relationships. And listening for what your partner _means_ instead of just what she says.” He gives her a small, wry smile. 

“Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think,” Lorelai intones.

They stare at each other.

Luke opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, then falters and changes tactics. He gestures across the table. “There’s pie.”

“I saw,” Lorelai replies. “That’s why I came in.”

“That’s why I put it there,” Luke says lightly.

“Ah. You’re a sly one, Luke Danes.”

“Are you gonna sit down?”

“Yes,” she says, and doesn’t.

He waits for her to. She stays standing. After a moment he nods, like he’s responding to something she didn’t say. He starts drumming his fingers on the tabletop.

“You’re the most important thing in my life, you know,” he says, eyes on the table. “And maybe that’s not right to say – you know, once you have a kid they’re the most important thing, and April is important, really important. I dunno, maybe she’s the most important in another way. But you—”

“Luke, it’s fine,” Lorelai cuts in. “I wasn’t fishing earlier. I swear.”

“No. I need to say it. I hate the idea of you not knowing, and I’m not good at saying stuff. I’ve always figured, you _do_ things to show people you care about them, but I think now that I haven’t been doing enough lately, so—”

He looks up at her. Her heart is thumping stupidly, making her dizzy. It feels a little like they’ve gone back in time. Standing on the porch of the Dragonfly, feeling the air change around them for good.

“You’re everything to me,” Luke says. “You always have been, even before all this started between us. Way before. You know what a pain in the ass it is to build a chuppah? Carving all those stupid fancy goats?”

“I’m guessing a big pain,” Lorelai says.

“Big is right,” he says. “But I was happy doing it because the whole time I thought, ‘I bet this will make Lorelai smile.’ I can’t tell you all the stupid stuff I’ve done over the years and liked doing just because I knew you would smile at it. And I don’t want there to ever be a day when you don’t feel like smiling and it’s my fault you feel that way. So if I’m making you feel bad, you have to tell me, okay? Because then I’m letting you down, and that’s the one thing I never want to do.”

“Really?” she teases, starting to smile. “The one thing?”

“I’m not wild about the idea of watching Stars Hollow Elementary’s production of Godspell either,” he says dryly, “but we both know you’re going to drag me into that one.”

“Oh, hell yeah. That’s totally happening.”

“I thought so.”

He smiles at her. And just like that, she knows that they’ll be okay. Maybe not giddy all the time. Maybe not skipping through sunshiney fields never knowing a moment’s conflict. But okay. And together. And that’s the most important part.

She sits down and takes the coffee. It warms her hands, and smells like everything good in the world. She takes a blissful sip.

“I called Anna,” Luke says.

“I heard.”

“I made it clear that this is a package deal, you and me. At least I hope I made it clear.”

“If you didn’t, Emily Gilmore sure did her best to drive it home.”

“Well, good. Anna sounded like she was willing to reevaluate some stuff.”

“Okay.”

“And even if she doesn’t,” Luke says, “that doesn’t change anything between you and me.”

Lorelai knows he means it, but it still almost seems too good to be true. “Really?”

“Really,” he says firmly. He reaches for her hand from across the table. Lorelai gives it. A little warily, he adds, “We’re gonna have to talk about all this. The wedding, and—and the not communicating. All that. I mean _really_ talk about it.”

“I know,” Lorelai says.

“And the talking will probably turn into fighting. There’s a good chance there’ll be yelling.”

“I know,” Lorelai says.

“You up for that?”

For the first time in ages – in forever, maybe – she feels like she is. She gives him a slight smile. “All in, baby.”

Luke smiles back. She looks at him and loves him so much it almost hurts. A good pain, though. So much better than the way she felt before she walked in that door.

“You wanna go upstairs and eat the pie in bed and watch something dumb on TV?” he asks.

“Dear God, yes,” Lorelai says.

“And coffee,” Luke says. “Can’t have pie without coffee.”

He gets up and starts bustling around behind the counter, grabbing a breakfast tray. Meanwhile, Lorelai takes the daisy out of the bottle and holds it between her fingers. Who says daisies are only good for summer weddings, anyway?

“You won’t believe how much crap Taylor gave me for going into Doose’s and getting that.” Luke nods at the daisy as he moves the pie onto the breakfast tray.

“Oh yeah?”

“Apparently it’s tacky to just get one daisy. I told him I knew what I was doing, it was part of an inside thing, but was that enough for him? Of course not. It was all, ‘Are you _sure_ , Luke?’ and ‘Can’t I interest you in a dozen roses instead?’ and ‘No self-respecting woman would be satisfied with one paltry garden weed.’ I was tempted to buy the dozen roses just so I could shove them down his throat and make him shut up. Whatever happened to ‘the customer is always right’, anyway?” He huffs in irritation and puts the coffee mug onto the breakfast tray.

“Hey,” she says, catching his arm. He stills and looks down at her. “I love you.”

He wraps an arm around her shoulders. “I love you, too.”

It is, she decides, a testament of his devotion that he’s willing to stop ranting about Taylor Doose this fast.

She rests against his side. “This talking and fighting thing – can we put that off ‘til tomorrow?”

“Sure,” Luke says, and leans down to kiss her forehead. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Lorelai looks out the window into the dark town square, and is thankful here for the warmth and the light.

“Me either,” she says.


End file.
